Content Paint

Orientation & Direction (Map)

Direction and orientation — where the organisation is going and where it is now. Articles in this layer explore vision, strategy, painted pictures, and the leadership work of establishing a clear direction.

A photo of a street in Berlin, Germany

It's one of the uncomfortable truths of being in business: you are always solving problems, and there are always more of them than you could realistically solve.

A photo of a Mathematics: graph-plotting machine.

I'm humbled by fractional indices and would make a poor engineer. But one thing I can do is decide — and I've learned that's rarer, and more useful, than it looks.

A photo of a path through snow covered woodland - source: Deutsche Fotothek, Germany - CC BY-SA.

On strategy as one of the most human words we have: 'that which leads', and the three quiet things a real sense of direction rests on.

A photo of crops in Hampshire, England

A practical guide to backcasting: mountains, waypoints, the grid, and the conversation everyone skips.

A General Map of the World, or Terraqueouis Globe with all the New Discoveries and Marginal Delineations

Why clarity matters in messy creative work. We don't need to know every turn, but without a clear destination, good people can spend enormous effort going in the wrong direction.

A photo of a small sand timer

Time blocking looks like controlling time. Used well, it's the opposite: a way of seeing where your time actually goes

An old photo of people meeting in a town hall meeting - from Enligt notering: "Möte på Rådhuset Socialmötet maj -60". by Andersson, Arne - Bohuslän Museum, Sweden - Public Domain.

I joined a community group that met, discussed, minuted and solved precisely nothing. On the one question that fixed it — and the three that follow — none of which needs a single new tool.

A painting of a man looking surprised

Seasoned people aren't cleverer — they're better oriented. They see what's forming while others are still reacting. On awareness as a practice, weak signals, and why so much of experience is really just earlier sight.

A photo of some leaves Photo by Chris Lawton / Unsplash

On why real change starts in conversations, coffees and shared frustrations long before it ever reaches the org chart.

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